I had a couple of topics in mind for this week’s cathartic rambling, but I have to admit, the thing that stuck most in my mind on this day, September 19th, 2022, was NOT Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. Actually, I’ve been shackled to this keyboard all day and just haven’t had time to follow it. I planned to watch the special moments on one of the newscasts tonight. I’m sure there won’t be a shortage.

Now, for those who don’t know, my alma mater, the University of Washington and that school down in Eugene, the University of Oregon, have built quite a rivalry in sports over the years. Oh, sure, there’s always the cross-state rivalry the U-Dub has with Washington State University, but at least in my mind, that has always been a fairly friendly rivalry. There are some who take things like that way too seriously, but as I tell all my Cougar friends (and to be honest, I think I have more friends that are Cougars than Huskies), I cheer for them every game of the year EXCEPT when we play each other.

This past weekend, Brigham Young University—also Cougars–visited the Eugene campus to play the Oregon Ducks in a football game. They were just another one of those other-division schools that slip into the first couple of a games of a season. The results don’t affect the Pac-12 standings, BYU receives some nice TV money for it, and everyone goes home happy.

I’ve taken in a game at Autzen Stadium back when my daughter attended the school. An absolutely beautiful facility and campus. It’s amazing the things you can do when one of your biggest fans owns Nike.

For that game, you bet I wore Duck green and I didn’t see any displays of drunk unsportsmanlike behavior. But over the years, I’ve heard tales from friends who travel to U-Dub away games of bottles being thrown at Husky fans and even cups of pee being dumped on them. It’s enough that I would probably never go to a game there in my Husky purple. I mean, I’ve even attended an Apple Cup in Pullman and the worst I heard were a couple of drunk F-bombs by young, amateur smack-talkers.

I thought physically assaulting visiting fans was bad enough, but over the weekend, drunk student Duck fans hit an even lower point.

Those who will head to, “Oh, it’s just a few drunk students” or “Well, it rarely happens,” get your excuses ready.

I don’t need to go into detail as to what happened at the Oregon/BYU game over the weekend. I’ll let the video speak for itself. (and ruin my family rating)

https://twitter.com/i/status/1571474354327658496

This after BYU had come out on the field carrying an Oregon flag to salute to one of the Duck players who had died in a tragic accident just a couple of months ago.

 

Drink that “Oh, it’s only a couple of students” Kool Aid all you want, but the University should have done an immediate clamp-down on that crap. It’s totally inexcusable to tolerate that level of hate in their stadium. What would King Tim have done? I would have immediately ejected that entire section in the stands and escorted them out of the stadium. What would that achieve? For one, it would punish the haters and emphasize that kind of B.S. will not be tolerated. Secondly, the next time some drunk morons figure out an even lower level to sink to, surrounding students just might say something like, “Not a good idea”, so they’re not kicked out of a game.

We have some video. There are student I.D. pictures. Let’s match ’em up and permanently ban those students from attending anymore games.
Or, we can stick with the “It’s just a small bunch of drunk students” route and for future games, lets assign people to sit together, based on their hate. Students yelling “White Power” cheers will sit in section 27, the anti-Semitic students will be over there in section 25, why don’t we put the QAnon crowd in section 26 just to break things up, and so on. Those who have multiple hate in their hearts can pay extra so they can use the “all hate sections” pass and sit wherever they want.

America’s political atmosphere has always swung like a pendulum–we go right, then we go left, then back to right, followed by left. But somehow, some people have gotten stuck in a very hateful far right.

The U of O has apologized for the incident, but that’s about it. Seems like lip service, but I guess that it will have to do until the next incident.

Unless karma steps in.

You see, also attending that game, sitting right next to the chanting student section, was North Salem high school quarterback T.C. Manumaleuna and his family. He was there, because the Ducks offered him a full-ride scholarship to Oregon before he was even a freshman in high school. He’s now a junior in his pre-college years, and he may be re-thinking that decision to commit, as T.C. and his family are Mormon. They left the game at halftime.

I have a feeling there is a big family meeting in their future.

Thank you, karma, for all your efforts.

I’m really tired of all the hate.

Tim Hunter